Founding Feminists: September 6, 1920

Now that the fight over “Votes for Women” has moved from the State Legislatures to the courts, the process of dismantling the political machine that brought about the victory for nationwide woman suffrage has begun. In one example, Grace Wilbur Trout announced today that the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association, founded in 1869, would disband at its final convention on October 7th, having accomplished its purpose. Trout is already quite active in the League of Women Voters, the successor to the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and she was in charge of the L.W.V.’s national convention in Chicago in February.

Hopefully Trout’s confidence will be justified, because the “antis” are working just as hard now to challenge the 19th Amendment’s validity and postpone its implementation as they did to try to stop ratification. Three days ago the Tennessee House forced the pro-suffrage Governor of Tennessee to forward to the U.S. Secretary of State a copy of a resolution reversing their ratification vote on August 18th. The Governor did not sign anything that implied the House’s action was valid, and only certified that it was a true copy of the proceedings as recorded in the House Journal. That same day Tennessee Attorney General Thompson sent a telegram to Carrie Chapman Catt reassuring her that “nothing done in either branch of the General Assembly has amended the ratification and certification by the Governor to the Secretary of State of the Nineteenth Amendment upon which his proclamation was issued, nor can either branch of the Assembly, the Governor, or Secretary affect it.”

Opponents have a four-part strategy, but have already received a setback in regard to one attempt. Their primary focus is to challenge the legality of the ratification process, and get the courts to declare that the 19th Amendment is invalid because it was not properly ratified. But the Chief Justice of the D.C. Court of Appeals has refused to immediately certify their case for appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. So now they’re waiting for the entire D.C. Court of Appeals to convene on October 4th so it can rule on the merits of their case, and then they’ll try to get it to the Supreme Court as quickly as possible for a final ruling.

The Board of Directors of the National League of Women Voters at their convention in Chicago in February of this year. At the far right of the lower row is Carrie Chapman Catt, with Grace Wilbur Trout in the center and Maud Wood Park on the left. via The Leage of Women Voters Library

Meanwhile, suffrage opponents will also be in Nashville challenging Tennessee’s ratification of the 19th Amendment when the Tennessee Supreme Court convenes on September 20th. They will also try to use injunction and mandamus proceedings to prohibit election officials from letting women in non-suffrage States vote until after all the court cases have been decided. Finally, they will ask a State Attorney General friendly to their cause in a State where women could not vote prior to the 19th Amendment’s ratification to file a case challenging its validity. This would be the speediest way to the Supreme Court.

But Carrie Chapman Catt is not worried. Day before yesterday she said:

Women have the right to register to vote in all States under the Nineteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. The Federal amendment is ratified, all anti-suffragists to the contrary notwithstanding …. If any State authority denies her that privilege it is her right to demand it in the courts. It is possible for a thief to declare that a diamond ring is his because it is in his possession. It is sometimes necessary for the owner to prove his right of ownership in the court. This is parallel now with the women’s vote. No honorable State will deny it to the women.

She noted that former President Taft had something to say recently about those who may try to keep women from voting.

Election officers of the State who impede or deny her right to vote expose themselves to prosecution under statutes, whether Federal or State enacted, to protect citizens in their lawful right to vote. It may well be that the doubling of the number of voters in every State by this amendment will require, for the convenience of voters, amendments to the election laws of the States, but such inconveniences cannot be made any excuse for preventing women from exercising the franchise.

So, the suffrage battle is still being fought, both on a Federal and State level. In Mississippi, the law states that all voters must register four months before the election, and there does not appear to be any move to approve special legislation to allow women to register after that date, even though they were still prohibited from registering there on July 2nd.

In Georgia, the State Attorney General thinks women don’t even need to register, but local officials strongly disagree and are preventing women from doing so because that State’s registration deadline also ended before the 19th Amendment was ratified. But though suffrage may be delayed for a while in two States, it looks as if women will be voting for all offices and referenda, and in great numbers, in the other 46 States this year. That’s a major improvement over the 15 States when women had full suffrage just a few weeks ago.

(Photo : The Board of Directors of the National League of Women Voters at their convention in Chicago in February of this year. At the far right of the lower row is Carrie Chapman Catt, with Grace Wilbur Trout in the center and Maud Wood Park on the left.)

David Dismore

David became a lifelong admirer of the suffragists after briefly encountering them in a high school textbook in the early 1960s. Though missing out on that first part of the struggle for equality, he became active in "second wave" feminism through LA NOW in 1974 and has been a full-time feminist, TV news archivist, and women's history researcher at the Feminist Majority Foundation since its creation.